Confessions of an Oxytocin Addict

The other night, I found myself sitting cross-legged in the sand. It was past eight o’clock in the twilight hour where around here, the June evening turns a quiet shade of purple, and the long Willamette Valley daylight starts to drip out of the treeline. The butterflies were slowly disappearing for the night, but the swallows were still playing above me. I should have been in the house a half hour ago.

Instead, I was completely trapped. Novella had powered down. We’d just gotten done with a great ride (something about unlocking her lower back even more), and after her shower, instead of just rolling as per ush, she folded her legs under her frame and contoured her spine into an 850-pound unicorn version of a sleeping fawn. She had laid down right at my feet, so I tucked down next to her. Every time she exhaled, she let out this soft, fluttery breath that stirred a cloud of something; what I would later realize was my exact problem. In fact, if I stayed completely still, I could literally feel the rhythm of her heartbeat vibrating through the roundpen sand.

I sat there, totally blissed out. And then, instead of getting up, Novella lay completely flat out. About thirty minutes later, my bladder strictly demanded an exit strategy, but Novella just kept sleeping. Walking back through the dark barn, the reality of the situation suddenly hit me: I am a stone-cold oxytocin addict.

The Mare Person Problem

If you are a mare person, you already know the look we get from the rest of the equestrian world. The gelding owners roll their eyes at our snobbery, shaking their heads, convinced we are all suffering from a highly specialized form of Stockholm syndrome. They watch us navigate the dynamic opinions, the pinned ears, and the daily corporate negotiations of the mare pasture, and they think we’re entirely unhinged.

And let’s be honest, it is incredibly easy to buy into the noble, flattering version of our own myth. We carry this subtle (right?) air of superiority around the barn aisles. But, we have a legit reason! When a skeptical mare finally decides to be your bff, gives you her stamp of approval, and decides you are actually worth her time, you feel like you just won a gold medal in emotional intelligence. You look in the mirror and think you’ve evolved into a higher order of human. (To be fair, this is 100% true. Maybe we/I should just consider not flaunting it so much.)

But here’s the thing: sitting cross-legged in the dirt, wrapped in that unmistakable cloud of total peace, I realized something. It absolutely is a spiritual experience…but my motives might not be entirely pure. I wasn’t just soaking in the beauty of the universe; I was actively hovering over my primary supplier.

At the end of the day, I’m just addicted AF.

Up-Scaling the Hit

Everyone understands the baseline mammalian hit. It’s the cozy chemical dump you get from a long human hug, or when your cat or dog curls up on your lap and sighs. Your brain releases a little splash of oxytocin, and the world feels safe. But a house pet weighs somewhere between 5 and 105 pounds ish. A mare is a half-ton of raw living breathing power.

Now look, I know the gelding people are going to chime in here. Yes, geldings make oxytocin too. They do. And I love my geldings. But it’s just not the same volume. It’s not the same intensity. Mares are just turned up. They are dialed directly into that deep, maternal mainframe that turns them into drug lords in shiny coats and flowy tails.

Because we are right in the thick of spring, the ambient air in the barn is running at an all-time high. Plus it’s baby fever time. Even if you’re just watching foal porn on Instagram, it’s catchy. If you’ve ever sat near a great mama horse with her foal, you’ve felt that snuggly, fiercely protective, lovey, total-body calm they radiate. It isn’t a subtle mood; it’s a physical energy field. When you hang around mares, you are tapping a direct pipeline into that exact reservoir.

Soooo…

When your favorite mare stands over you like she would her foal, dropping into that deep, contented breathing, you aren’t just having a “nice moment.” You are checked into a torrential, total-body, high-end luxury spa-grade oxytocin bath. It is that exact same dog-on-your-lap feeling compounded to a half-ton. Or, if you want a more accurate image, she is essentially operating an industrial-grade, high-pressure hormonal fogger, completely blanketing your shared zone until you are breathing in nothing but pure peace and contentment.

Did I mention I’m A.D.D.I.C.T.E.D. ???

The Multiplier Effect = EXTRA

By the time I finally wandered out of the arena the other night heading toward the house, I realized I was walking in a full-on, blissed-out stupor, like some kind of specialized, organic high. And you guys, you almost have to feel a little sorry for me because I managed to get myself into such an absolute pickle.

See, if you’re a person with just one or two mares, your habit could still be relatively manageable. You might find a nice, reasonable, respectable twelve-step program for recovering equestrian snobs and call it a day. But the volumetric dosage at my house is completely out of control.

Somehow, (I have not idea how) I ended up multiplying that half-ton delivery by eight every single night. Literally eight mares. The dosage is entirely unreasonable. Feel sorry for me.

So if you’re a gelding person and you love a mare person, or you’re a regular person and you love a mare person, and you’re considering an intervention (which I suppose I am sort of implying somebody should have done for me, I realize now), nobody should bother staging one for you or me either. We just like hanging out with our girls, getting our daily fix.

Because yes, I’m an oxytocin addict. And no, I’m not going to rehab.

Are you running on the exact same fuel supply, or have you managed to stay clean? Whether you’re sitting in the sand with a mare or trying to negotiate with one who isn’t convinced yet, I’d love to hear your own stories below.

P.S. New Insider Dispatch up today that’s kinda sorta related. (Definitely an important study piece.) Sign Up or Log In at Horsemanship Insider.

Hope to see you on The Horsemanship Remarks Show LIVE this week. I’ll have coerced Michael into reading this post. 😅

Thanks for reading! 💕 Emma Daily Kline